Sanskrit Buddhist literature refers to Buddhist texts composed either in classical Sanskrit, or in a register that has been called "Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit" (also known as "Buddhistic Sanskrit" and "Mixed Sanskrit"), or a mixture of these two.Edgerton, Franklin (1953). Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary, Volume 1, pp. 1-3. MOTILAL BANARSIDASS. .Winternitz (1972) pp. 226-227. Several non-Mahāyāna Nikāyas appear to have kept their canons in Sanskrit, the most prominent being the Sarvāstivāda school.Prebish, Charles S. (2010) Buddhism: A Modern Perspective, pp. 42-44. Penn State Press. Many Mahāyāna Sūtras and śāstras also survive in Buddhistic Sanskrit or in standard Sanskrit.
During the Indian Tantric Age (8th to the 14th century), numerous Buddhist Tantras were written in Sanskrit, sometimes interspersed with local languages like Apabhramśa, and often containing notable irregularities in grammar and meter.Davidson, Ronald M. (2004). Indian Esoteric Buddhism: Social History of the Tantric Movement, pp. 267-277. Motilal Banarsidass Publ.
Indian Buddhist authors also composed treatises and other Sanskrit literary works on Buddhist philosophy, logic-epistemology, jatakas, epic poetry and other topics. Sanskrit Buddhist literature is therefore vast and varied, despite the loss of a significant amount of texts. While a large number of works survive only in Tibetan and Chinese translations, many Sanskrit manuscripts of important Buddhist Sanskrit texts survive and are held in numerous modern collections.Nariman, J.K.; Introduction to the Early Buddhist Texts in Sanskritised Prākit from Literary History of Sanskrit Buddhism , Ch 1-6.
Buddhists also wrote secular works on various topics like grammar (vyākaraṇa), poetry (kāvya), and medicine (Ayurveda).
History
History in India
The Buddha's teaching on scriptural language The earliest Buddhist texts were orally composed and transmitted in Middle Indo-Aryan dialects called Prakrits.Marcus Bingenheimer, Editor in Chief; Bhikkhu Anālayo and Roderick S. Bucknell, Co-Editors. The Madhyama Āgama: Middle Length Discourses Vol I (Taishō Volume 1, Number 26). Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai America, Inc. 2013. BDK English Tripiṭaka Series, p. xviWayman, Alex. "The Buddhism and the Sanskrit of Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit." Journal of the American Oriental Society Vol. 85, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar., 1965), pp. 111-115 (5 pages). Various parallel passages in the Buddhist Vinayas state that when asked to put the sutras into chandasas the Buddha refused and instead said the teachings could be transmitted in sakāya niruttiyā (Skt. svakā niruktiḥ).Levman, Bryan. Sakāya niruttiyā revisited. Bulletin des Études Indiennes, 26-27 (2008-2009): 33-51 This passage was interpreted in different ways in India, China and in Western scholarship. Various translations and passages in Indian Vinaya works interpret chandasas as referring to the language used by Brahmins, i.e. Vedic Sanskrit and sakāya niruttiyā as referring to local vernacular languages or dialects. This view has also been taken by various modern scholars like Franklin Edgerton.
However, the Sarvāstivāda Vinaya texts state that chandasas does not refer to Sanskrit itself, but to a specific Vedic intonation used to chant the Vedas. Scholars like Sylvain Lévi have seen this as an attempt to suppress the Buddha's rejection of Sanskrit but other scholars support the reading of the term nirutti as meaning "intonation", "recitation" or "chant."
The British philologist K.R. Norman defines nirutti as "synonym" or "gloss". Bryan Levman notes that the term can also mean "explanation of words," "grammatical analysis," "etymology," "pronunciation," or "way of expression" according to the Pali-English Dictionary. Levman argues that numerous usages of the term in the Pāli canon support the idea that the term here means a description or "explanation, not necessarily etymological, of the meaning of a word or text." According to Levman, the famous Vinaya passage on language can be seen as meaning that the Buddha did not approve of certain monks who were using their own terms, expressions and explanations instead of the special terminology developed by the Buddha to explain his teachings. When some monks told this to the Buddha, they recommended that the Buddha's word be put in chandasas (Vedic meters and chanting forms), but the Buddha refused and said the teaching should merely be transmitted using his "own terminology" (sakāya niruttiyā).
Sanskritization and adoption of Sanskrit Early Buddhists used a variety of related Middle Indic prakrit dialects. The Theravãda tradition eventually adopted one form of Middle Indic, called Pāli, as its canonical language and the Pāli Canon was written down in this language in the 1st century BCE in Sri Lanka. However, in North India and Central Asia, Buddhist texts were transmitted in other prakrits like Gandhari, Northern Buddhist texts were also often sanskritised in varying degrees and translated into other dialects and languages.
Furthermore, from the third century on, new Buddhist texts in India began to be composed in standard Sanskrit. Over time, Sanskrit became the main language of Buddhist scripture and scholasticism in North India. This was influenced by the rise of Sanskrit as a political and literary lingua franca of the Indian subcontinent, perhaps reflecting an increased need for elite patronage.Johannes Bronkhorst, Buddhism in the Shadow of Brahmanism (Handbook of Oriental Studies) Leiden: Brill, 2011, 46-47, 129. Because of this, many manuscripts from Northern Buddhist traditions are often in Sanskrit, either classical or a non-standard form, often called Buddhist Sanskrit or Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit (BHS). BHS is an intermediate or mixed language that contains elements of an unknown Middle Indic Prakrit and standard Sanskrit.
Edgerton notes that a striking feature of BHS is that "from the very beginning of its tradition as we know it (that is, according to the mss. we have), and increasingly as time went on, it was modified in the direction of standard Sanskrit, while still retaining evidences of its Middle Indic origin."Edgerton (1953) p. 4. Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit works vary in their extent of Sanskritization. Perhaps the earliest of these texts is the Mahavastu (c. 2nd century BCE), which contains only slight Sanskrit elements while later works (such as various Mahayana sutras) are more Sanskritized while also containing unique terminology not found in other standard Sanskrit works.Edgerton (1953) pp. 5-8.
Sukumar Sen disagreed with Edgerton's view that Buddhist Sanskrit is a "hybrid" language. Sen writes that "Buddhistic Sanskrit is not a hybrid language" and that its structure is that of: an Indo-Aryan language that was much akin to Sanskrit but unlike it was not rigidly controlled by the grammarians. It was a free kind of language that was used by ordinary men, not aspiring for Hindu scholarship or veneration. It was what may be called Spoken Sanskrit. By its nature it was an unstable literary or business language varying according to time and place. To call such a language 'hybrid' is not correct. Buddhistic Sanskrit was not an artificially made up language fashioned by fusing Sanskrit and the Prākṛits.Sen, Sukumar, "On Buddhistic (hybrid) Sanskrit." (Reprint B. T. N. S. No - 1, 1977 ). Bulletin of Tibetolog. 2 (1997 ). p. 77 - 78.Whatever the case, Buddhist Sanskrit became the main religious language used by north Indian Buddhists for religious purposes and over time, these works adopted more standard Sanskrit forms. The Sanskritization of Buddhist literature was particularly influenced by the north-western Indian Buddhists, especially those of the Sarvāstivāda tradition.Bronkhorst, Johannes. "The Spread of Sanskrit," (published in: From Turfan to Ajanta: Festschrift for Dieter Schlingloff on the Occasion of his Eightieth Birthday. Ed. Eli Franco and Monika Zin. Lumbini International Research Institute. 2010. Vol. 1. Pp. 117-139.)Winternitz (1972) p. 232. During the reign of the Kushan (CE 30-375) emperor Kanishka (128–151 CE), a major Sarvāstivāda Buddhist council seems to have been held, either in Gandhara or Kashmir. During this council, some work was done on the Sarvāstivāda canon, which by now was being transmitted in a form of Sanskrit. The main commentaries of the Sarvāstivāda-Vaibhāṣika were also composed in Sanskrit. An influential and large Sanskrit commentary known as the Mahāvibhāṣa ("Great Exegesis") was also composed around this time. According to Maurice Winternitz, numerous fragments of the Sarvāstivāda Sanskrit canon have survived, especially from archeological findings in East Turkestan, and also from quotations in other sources.
Other Indian Buddhist schools, like the Mahāsāṃghika-Lokottaravāda and Dharmaguptaka schools, also adopted Sanskrit or Sanskritized their scriptures to different degrees.von Hinüber, Oskar. 1989. "Origin and Varieties of Buddhist Sanskrit." In Caillat, Colette (ed.), Dialectes dans les langues indo-aryennes, pp. 341-367. Paris: Collège de France, Institut de Civilisation Indienne.
Reasons for the adoption of Sanskrit
Scholars are unsure of what led to the widespread adoption of Sanskrit by Indian Buddhists, and various theories have been offered.
According to Johannes Bronkhorst, part of the reason for the Buddhist adoption of Sanskrit was due to the cultural and political influence of Brahmanas. Since Buddhists became reliant on the support of the royal and elite classes, "the adoption of Sanskrit became a matter of adjusting to the exigencies of the day." Bronkhorst argues that the use of Sanskrit would have eased the interactions between Buddhists and the Sanskrit-speaking royal courts which the Buddhists relied on for material support.
Vincent Eltschinger writes that the few ancient sources which discuss the phenomenon of the Sanskritization of Buddhist texts "justify the recourse, if not directly to Sanskrit, at least to (Sanskrit) grammar, on the basis of the felt necessity to challenge the Brahmins' monopoly on conceptually and formally well-formed language and eloquence. In other words, what these Buddhists were up to might have been self-authorization, didactic skills and superiority in debate."Eltschinger, Vincent. "Why did the Buddhists adopt Sanskrit?" Open Linguistics 2017; 3: 308–326 Degruyter. In this view, the prestige of Sanskrit was adopted by the Buddhists in order to legitimate their teachings as authoritative.
This view is supported by certain passages in the texts of the Northern Mahāyāna tradition. For example, the Bodhisattvabhūmi (250-300?) states that "a bodhisattva studies the linguistic science in order to arouse confidence among those who are attached to the Sanskrit language by choosing well-formed phrases and syllables." Also, Sthiramati's (6th century CE?) Sūtrālaṅkāravṛtti bhāṣya states:A bodhisattva studies the linguistic science (śabdavidyā) both in order to authorize himself among other experts on account of his [own] skill in the Sanskrit language (saṃskṛtalapita) and in order to defeat the allodox teachers (tīrthika) who boast of knowing the linguistic treatise(/science) (śabdaśāstra). According to Eltschinger, Yogācāra sources like these "ascribe a threefold purpose to the study of (Sanskrit) grammar: authorizing a bodhisattva's speech so that he does not become the target of the sarcasms of pseudo-experts; allowing him to preach the Buddhist Law in a conceptually precise and formally irreproachable language; cause him to possess the eloquence that enables him to defeat his opponents in debate." Another important use of knowing Sanskrit according to Eltschinger was that it allowed Buddhists to study the scriptures of non-Buddhists, with the goal of defeating them in debate.